Point: Treating stage II colon cancer: The quest for personalized adjuvant care

Maxwell T. Vergo, Al B. Benson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The development of treatment decision strategies to guide the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with stage II colon cancer continues to challenge many oncologists. Clearly, recurrence risk and prognosis for patients with stage II colon cancer can be variable, with subsets of patients with stage II disease at potentially higher risk than some with stage III. Adjuvant chemotherapy seems to produce a consistent relative risk reduction for recurrence across studies. Using clinical calculators to predict individual recurrence risk based on histopathologic and patient data allows this relative risk reduction to be translated into absolute benefit to the patient. In addition, gene expression assays in combination with these histopathologic data may further improve the accuracy of recurrence risk calculations and allow more accurate absolute benefit estimations. This absolute benefit should be discussed with the patient, taking into account the risk of morbidity from chemotherapy and individual preferences to arrive at a shared medical decision regarding adjuvant chemotherapy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1370-1374
Number of pages5
JournalJNCCN Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network
Volume10
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1 2012

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Point: Treating stage II colon cancer: The quest for personalized adjuvant care'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this